At EVE Fanfest 2014, CCP announced a prototype called Project Legion, a new PC shooter in the EVE Online universe. We were immediately left to wonder what this meant for Dust 514 which already fills that shooter role but as a PS3 exclusive. CCP representatives were predictably dodgy in interviews, stressing that Project Legion wasn't even definitely a thing at this point.

At the time, it seemed like Dust 514's death knell. However, as two entire years passed, hindsight suggests that maybe even CCP wasn't sure what its plans were as it stayed mum on all things Project Legion (we were informed at Fanfest last year that nobody was going to talk about it). Did it want to push this PC shooter and abandon consoles? How long could it keep with a PS3 game as the user base on legacy systems dwindled?

Today, it all becomes crystal clear. In a post on the Dust 514 forums, a CCP developer revealed that the game would be shut down on May 30, 2016. Plans to release an update have been halted, and all microtransactions have been removed from the storefront.

In its stead, CCP has decided to fully lean into the Project Legion idea and is developing a PC shooter in EVE Online's New Eden. This new game is called "an evolution of Project Legion," but it isn't elaborated as to exactly how it's an evolution. It could really be anything, because we never knew all that much about Project Legion in the first place.

CCP says that this game is in early phases of development but that it'll have an update at this year's Fanfest which takes place in late April. We've reached out to the developer with some questions about Dust 514's demise and the prospects for this new shooter, but we don't honestly expect to hear anything until Fanfest. We'll update this post if we receive a response.